Shafism has its stronghold at Cairo, where the Sheykh el Islam has
always belonged to this rite, but it is also the prevailing school in
Asia wherever Mohammedanism has been introduced through the
instrumentality of Arabian missionaries. In India the mass of the
Mussulman population is Shafite, especially in Hyderabad and the Bombay
Presidency, where the Arab element is strongest, while Hanefism is the
school of the great people who derive their origin from the Mogul
conquests, and of many of the Ulema who are in the habit of making their
religious education complete in the Hanefite schools of Bokhara.
Wahhabism, too, in the present century has taken great hold of the
poorer classes, and within the last few years a Turkish propaganda has
been at work among them with some success. But of this again later.
The Indian Haj is the most numerous, and represents the largest
population of all on our list, and it is besides the most wealthy. The
Indian Mussulman has less to fear from the climate of Arabia than the
native of more northern lands, and few who can afford it fail to perform
this religious duty at least once in their lives. The English Government
neither checks nor encourages the Haj, and indeed of late years has
shown a rather culpable negligence as to the interests of British
subjects on pilgrimage.
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